Half-Assed Veggie Girl Saves the World

I'll be the first to admit it - I'm a pretty half-assed vegetarian. While I enjoy obsessing about veg recipes, touting the health benefits of a veg diet, and annoying my friends and family with continual anti-meat harrassment, frankly, I love me some sushi occasionally (It's just fish, right? Those floppy little suckers didn't even see it coming!).

Unlike scary, militant veggieheads, my own dietary aspirations are less the result of an all-consuming passion for animal welfare and more about the overwhelming horror I felt upon discovering the environmental effects of a meat-based diet. Thus the pro-veggie harassment of my nearest and dearest. I see it this way: wallow in blissful ignorance, or educate yourself. Take your pick. (Yes, annoying and self-righteous, aren't I? That's okay, I've been called worse.)

Read!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html

For the record, the person who wrote the New York Times article at the link above is not a vegetarian, nor am I advocating vegetarianism for anyone. I'd just like to point this out:

"the University of Chicago calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent, it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius."
JUST 20 PERCENT, PEOPLE!! That's all I'm sayin'!

More highlights:
"...the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation."

"...assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests."

"...the world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons."

"Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens."

Veg out, people.